The Ultimate Betrayal

I first met my wife, Jane, when we started at the same high school together. We became friends as a part of a large group. She was friendly and funny with the ability to make people laugh. She was also empathetic. She was the one who was always there when anyone felt down.

When we all went out she wasn't the life of the party but she made sure everyone was included. Since there was usually eight or ten people in our friendship group this was at times a difficult task. She spent an equal amount of time with all the boys in the group while never showing anything beyond friendship to any of us.

We all left for College with promises to keep in touch and see each other whenever we could. Most of us were staying close to home buy Jane went to the other side of the country. At first we heard from her often but this petered out over time.

While upset I was not surprised. People move on. We all graduated on time and our job seeking took us all over the country. I was fortunate to find a job in the capital. I had graduated as a teacher and found a job in a well-known High School teaching English and History.

Life was good and while I didn't have a steady partner I was usually able to find dates when I wanted. I was at a Professional Development day for Graduate teachers when I saw Jane again. I was surprised but only because I thought she was studying Law.

We saw each other over lunch and caught up with what had happened since we saw each other last. I told her what everyone from our old group of friends was doing. She was really excited to hear about them. I asked her about her time at College.

It turns out she found a guy about a week after she began. He turned out to be very controlling and he gradually cut all of her old friends out of her life. She tried to break up with him a few times but they always got back together. She eventually left him when she took this job in the Capital. She hadn't told him where she was.

Before too long life was back to normal, well, as normal as it can be for a graduate teacher. Although working at different schools Jane and I saw a lot of each other. We partnered each other to our school's staff get-togethers and enjoyed weekend walks along the riverfront, as well as seeing movies and plays together.

Eventually we both felt ourselves with feelings for each other. One night after dinner together we kissed for the first time. It was like fireworks had gone off in my head. The feelings were so strong that I was surprised. Jane looked at me and simply said, "Why didn't we do this sooner?"

That night we spent a wonderful time exploring each other's bodies while making sweet love together.

We did this almost every night for a month before we decided to move in together. It was inevitable but we got engaged at the end of our first year of teaching.

Life was fantastic. We were deeply in love and our old friends couldn't be happier for us. We married in our hometown on New Year's Eve. All of our friends were able to be there which was really pleasing. We spent a wonderful week in the Bahamas for our honeymoon and were ready to get back into work when we got home.

We had talked about starting a family but both thought we should wait. We were both just beginning our careers and wanted to consolidate before anything happened in that direction. We were both very young too and instinctively knew that waiting five or so years would be for the best.

Our love life was explosive. Jane was a great and generous lover. She always made sure she looked after me and I tried to reciprocate. On the few occasions that she didn't cum when we made love she was philosophical about it.

"Just loving you is enough, Scott. I don't need to orgasm to enjoy loving you, you know."

What a woman.

Our lives were almost perfect. There were arguments and disagreements along the way but generally speaking life was good.

We had been teaching for five years when the first cracks appeared. I was so in love that I ignored them for quite a while. We discussed children again. Jane said she wasn't ready yet. I argued that we had agreed to a five-year wait but I didn't force the issue. I was well aware that I was not the one to be carrying the baby for nine months.

The school where Jane taught was not as highly thought of as where I worked. Because of this there was greater room for advancement. She was selected to be on the school leadership team. This meant less face-to-face teaching and more meetings out of school hours.

It also meant a higher wage but as we maintained separate accounts for our pay to go into I didn't see much of it. This was another of those little cracks that I ignored.

Her leadership role also meant that she would be away overnight for various reasons. She might be visiting another school, or attending a leadership workshop, or various professional development seminars that I never got to hear about. This was another crack I ignored. I assumed that these seminars were for members of leadership teams. That was what she told me anyway. I had no reason to disbelieve her. Funnily enough, none of the leadership from my school spent anywhere near the time out of the school that she did.

I was feeling especially vulnerable that winter. I had the flu and couldn't shake it so my immune system was poor. I had the normal problems that teachers had, and one of my best students had gotten pregnant and had left. All of this happened in the same week. Then Jane came home and told me of a weeklong course she was going on the following week.

I challenged her on it. I asked her why she waited until the last minute to tell me she would be away. She didn't explain. She just said that I was shitty with her because I wanted her there to look after me, and my 'man-flu.'

I chose not to comment but it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was spending more and more time away at meetings and conferences and less time at home with me. She was also telling me with less time to prepare for it.

She was having weekly leadership team meetings at school. They had developed into meetings and dinner because they went so late. It was on one of these 'meeting' nights that my world came crashing down around me.

I had organised to go out with a colleague because I knew Jane would be late. We decided to go to a restaurant a fair way away from our school so we could talk shop without being recognised or interrupted.

The Golden Hind Hotel was relatively new and its restaurant had already garnered a great reputation. We had a pleasant meal and an interesting professional discussion. We paid, left a tip and said goodbye. I decided to go into the bar next door as I knew Jane would not be home for a while yet.

I got a drink and sat with my back to the wall in a corner of the bar, next to a bank of booths, where I could see the whole room. I liked 'people watching' and bars were my favourite places to do it. This one seemed to have some sort of convention happening, as there seemed to be groups of single men and not many women.

I had been there for about ten minutes when a couple came in. He was huge, probably 6'5" and very broad across the shoulders. He was wearing black pants and shirt and looked like an archetypal movie villain. The way he led his date by the hand showed everyone that he was in charge.

She was wearing impossibly high heels, black with stiletto heels. She wore them well, though, obviously well practiced. Her black dress hardly covered her bum. I didn't see a front view but the side view showed more of her breast than I expected. I idly wondered what she had on underneath and speculated that it was probably nothing. The cut of the dress certainly didn't allow for bra or knickers.

Her wavy blond hair cascaded down past her shoulders. Her build made her look a little like Jane but the hair, while the right colour, was all wrong. Jane's blond hair was straight and she didn't own a dress like that, or shoes. While she could have been the same height as my wife it was impossible to tell because of her heels. She certainly had the same build.

He went straight to the bar and she went to the toilet. He sat in the booth next to me and she joined him there.

"Hey babe, got a question for you. Are you pregnant yet?"

"I don't know, Doug. I don't think so."

"Well, we can try again tonight before you need to go home to your husband."

"I look forward to it."

What a conversation I was hearing. This woman was obviously playing around cheating on her husband and hoping to get pregnant by her boyfriend. What a bitch!

"Next week while you're on your 'course' we can make sure of it."

"I should be right in the middle of my most fertile time next week. I'm glad we planned for the 'course' to be next week."

So, she was going to be with the boyfriend while the husband thought she was on a course of some sort. You'd think that I would have some concerns by now but I was oblivious. Just because she had a vague resemblance to my wife and was going away next week didn't mean anything to me just yet.

He spoke again. "So when are you leaving your husband and marrying me, babe?"

"Doug, I'm not going to marry you. You know we nearly killed each other when we lived together during College. It's much better this way. I'm married to a sweet, docile, incredibly dumb man, who lets me go to every 'course' I can make up. I get to spend every Thursday with you as well as an over-nighter every month or so. And we get together for a week every so often for the great sex you give me. As well as that he is a built in babysitter and he will look after us financially. You can't ask for much more than that."

"You know it, babe. And the sex is pretty good."

"And I think my leadership team at school will add in another evening meeting every week too."

"Great. Does he suspect anything?"

"No, he hasn't got a clue. When I caught up with him after College I convinced him that you were bad news and that you didn't know where I was. Little did he know that you live here and work at this great hotel. Thank God we don't have to pay for our room. We've saved a fortune over the last few years haven't we?"

"It would have been worth it though, babe. You are worth every penny we would have paid. Let's go back to the room and try to make a baby."

"As soon as I finish my drink, sugar."

The conversation had taken a turn for the worse from my perspective. They had pretty much described the time my wife had off work exactly. Every Thursday evening, overnight each month and a weeklong course twice a semester or so.

I froze as I heard all of this. Surely Jane wouldn't be cheating on me? Surely I would know if she was? The couple left their booth. As they walked away I looked closely at the woman. It might have been Jane but I couldn't be sure.

I left the bar and drove home in a daze. What was I going to do now? As I drove I decided that I would find out a little about this course Jane was going on and check it out.

I was asleep when she got home. This was happening more and more as she got later and later each Thursday. The next day I asked her where her course was being held. She named a town a few miles away.

"School leadership?" I asked.

"Yeah, the school is introducing a new management system and we need to be up to scratch before we present it to the rest of the staff. Don't forget I leave Sunday afternoon and will be home on Friday night."

"I won't. But I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too dear."

Throughout the whole conversation there was no eye contact from Jane. It was as if she was hiding something. I decided then and there that I would go to the Golden Hind that Sunday afternoon and just see if she turned up there.

That day at school I made a few discreet enquiries about this course and a new school management system. Noone could tell me anything about it. Usually I would think this was okay. Just because someone was doing a course was no reason for anyone from my school to know anything about it. Especially a new system. We had our systems going really well so wouldn't necessarily send anyone to a course like this.

Saturday was uneventful. I asked Jane what time she had to leave the next day and she told me about three o'clock. I told her that I had organised to see a colleague at two to go over some student data. She had no comment.

At two o'clock on the Sunday I kissed my wife goodbye and drove to the Golden Hind. I parked on a back street and went into the bar. I bought a drink and sat where I could see reception. I nursed my drink and wondered what the hell I was doing.

At about ten to three the same tall, dark man I had seen the previous Thursday came in with a suitcase. He went straight to reception, left an envelope, picked up a key and went to the elevator.

I was actually scared now. My heart was beating like a drum and my hands were shaking. Then it happened. At about five past three my beautiful wife walked into reception. She went to the desk, received an envelope and a key and went straight to the elevator.

My world had fallen apart. I slumped in my seat and tears began rolling down my face. Somehow I got up and walked to my car. I drove home and thought about what to do. Recalling the conversation last Thursday I realised that she had probably been cheating on me all the way through our marriage.

I couldn't understand why she would do this. How can she marry someone but continue on with her affair? The more I thought about it, the more I realised I didn't care.

The next day I spoke to my principal. I told her that I was resigning and asked if I could leave straight away. I had enough leave to do so, and that's what I did. I spent the rest of the week organising my finances and seeing a lawyer. I was told that adultery was hard to prove but if she fell pregnant we could use the baby's DNA.

I decided to have her served as soon as she got home on the Friday. I didn't want to be there so I left. I was going somewhere far enough away that I would never have to see her again.

Sure enough she was served that Friday. The phone calls began at about five o'clock. I let every one of them go to voice mail. I checked in with my lawyer the following week. I was told she was contesting it. I was happy for them to do nothing for nine months.

It turned out that she did fall pregnant. Nine months later my lawyer contacted me with the news that she had given birth. I told him to start proceedings again, this time using adultery. She contested it and had a counter suit against me for abandonment.

The lawyers made various noises until mine insisted on a DNA sample from the child. He argued that it would settle both issues in one. If I was the father she could get the abandonment judgement. If not I would get her on adultery.

Of course she fought against it until we got a judgement forcing her to get it. And yes, I wasn't the father. So now I got my lawyer to hit her with everything they had. I got a 70-30 split of all assets we had at the time of the split. I also got alimony because she had a well-paid job but I was unemployed.

It turned out that she and Doug really couldn't live together without hurting each other. A neighbour, who called the cops, witnessed Doug beating her. He was arrested and even without her testimony he was convicted and served time.

Jane lost her job because of all of the lies and deceitful behaviour she had shown. Apparently she had convinced them that she needed time off on Thursdays to look after her sick mother. She also needed family leave of a week every three months or so. She took days off together without doctor's certificates as well.

Some people ask me why I never confronted her. I often ask myself the same question. Once I realised the extent of her deceit I realised that she would lie and cheat her way back into my life. I wasn't prepared for that to happen so I simply ignored her. I don't regret it because I know a confrontation would have been ugly and wouldn't have helped either of us.

So there she was, the former love of my life, living alone with a baby. She was divorced and the father of her child was in prison. She had lost her job but still had to pay alimony. And I felt absolutely no sympathy for her at all. She made her bed and now she had to lie in it. She showed me the ultimate betrayal but, as the old saying goes, cheats never prosper.